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I used my homemade drying oil in recent sessions with Down on Prospect Avenue. I substitute the oil for black oil in my medium recipe. Large paintings (Down on Prospect Avenue is 44″ x 60″) have issues that smaller ones don’t have. Matching tones previously used, to name just one. Anyway, it’s getting there. It’s…

The Cleveland Museums of Art’s Eyewitness Views: Making History in Eighteenth-Century Europe is the best show I’ve seen at the museum since I started my near-weekly visits six years ago. As good as the show is, however, the theme–artists as eyewitnesses to history–is a stretch. The paintings are souvenirs of public events in (equally important)…

Just now, I’m interested in multiple treatments of the same subject. I make drawings (cartoons) and transfer them to multiple surfaces. So far, I’ve limited the process to two instances per drawing. When I do an ambitious drawing perhaps I will expand to three or more treatments. This photo shows two versions of a small winter…

The unfinished painting The Press is 40″ x 50.” I’ve used RGH’s walnut-ground flake white for a couple of weeks and I like it more and more. It keeps its body even when thinned to the constancy of gouache, such as the white shirts in the painting. I plan to write about preparing canvases soon.…

I used to think speed is important in art making. Speed relates to spontaneity–some say–and spontaneity guarantees authenticity, if not creativity. While spontaneity is important in art making, it’s not fundamental. Even if you insist that spontaneity is essential, you can’t make the same claim for speed. Speed is simply irrelevant. Another important idea for…

I finished drawing the cartoon for this painting yesterday and spent the morning transferring it to the canvas. You can see the transferred cartoon in this photo. I spent the remainder of yesterday and all of today working on the new painting. In this photo, the gray ground is still visible throughout the painting. Booth at…

I worked on these two paintings today before my daughter and I went to the marina to work on The Betty Jane. The left-hand painting, The Delegate, is sailing along, to use a nautical allusion. Two days ago, I lightly varnished it with my special varnish. Now, the surface is really sweet and the colors no longer…

The unfinished Women in Sandals is part of the Playhouse Square series. Women in Sandals is 44″ x 60.” Here is a painting tip: If you are struggling to get light in a painting, strengthen the darks. You might be surprised at how making the darks darker makes muddy lights shine brightly.